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Windows 8: a 'Christmas Gift For Someone You Hate'
zacharye writes "Microsoft is no stranger to criticism these days, and the company's new Windows 8 platform is once again the target of a scathing review from a high-profile user. Well-known Internet entrepreneur and MIT professor Philip Greenspun handed Windows 8 one of its most damning reviews yet earlier this week, calling the new operating system a 'Christmas gift for someone you hate.' Greenspun panned almost every aspect of Microsoft's new software, noting that Microsoft had four years to study Android and more than five to examine iOS, but still couldn't build a usable tablet experience..."
Not some blog that quotes the article
“Suppose that you are an expert user of Windows NT/XP/Vista/7, an expert user of an iPad, and an expert user of an Android phone you will have no idea how to use Windows 8,” Greenspun wrote.
“Suppose that you are an expert user of Windows NT/XP/Vista/7, an expert user of Windows 8, and an expert user of an Android phone you will have no idea how to use an iPad,” Greenspun wrote.
Seriouslt, playing around with settings,etc is frustratingly hard in iPhones atleast. The basic stuff is on the surface, the rest is 5 km below the surface
I've been using an Android tablet after I switched away from the iPad. It was TERRIBLE. Android is definitely the worst of all tablet UIs.
Stop using the 79 dollar chinese made resistive screen tablet you bought a Walgreens last Christmas and try a real android tablet or install Cyanogen Mod on an HP Touchpad. Then get back to me.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
RE: IT wasn't build on marketing
I used to say this years ago.
MS proved that you could sway IT decisions by wining and dining executives of organizations regardless of technical merits of the products.
Soon after, MS products were sold on the lemming effect, alone.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
What use would it be to invent something that duplicates iOS or Android?
People would just keep using the original and deny the copy.
It's smart to take features from these systems, but useless to repeat them. Technology is forged by people who find new ways to do useful things. That doesn't mean imitation, it means re-invention.
Microsoft also has a long legacy of Windows products and users to uphold, and has to merge these two.
I realize that liking Windows around here is about as favorably looked upon as non-ironically liking Bruce Springsteen at a hipster party, but demonization for not being a clone is undeserved here.
I converted my main workstation at work to windows 8 a week ago, mostly in order to learn and get used to it.
While there indeed is a bit of a hassle to change some of the habits from xp, vista and 7 to fit 8, and I really dislike the start panel that has replaced the start menu, it's not really a big deal.
I've put my 20 or so most used applications in the taskbar and pinned my most used folders and files into the respective taskbar icons and changed my "click start menu and open the file or folder"-habit into a "right click the taskbar icon and open the file or folder"-habit.
Also, I've installed regular windows applications as replacements for all the standard windows 8 applications, like vlc instead of the full screen windows 8 movie player, acrobat reader instead of the full screen windows 8 pdf-viewer, etc.
To be honest, I haven't used the start panel at all this entire week, except for going to the desktop after logging in.
On one hand, I've not really seen any of the horrible downsides with windows 8 that everyone talks about. On the other hand, I haven't seen many improvements over windows 7 yet. The new task manager and the new file-copy graph windows are awesome though.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
A simple Windows+D keystroke takes you into desktop mode and you can choose to remain there as long as you wish. I do hate the removal of the windows launcher in Desktop mode, but there are alternative options out there to get back that functionality.
This is what's really bugging me about everything I read that has to do with Windows 8, people are constantly making excuses for it.
Seriously, it became ok to remove a feature that seemed to be essential to the system because we can download a third party module that will fix it? Honestly, If there is such a demand for a feature that people have to download an extension to get the feature back, is that maybe something that shouldn't have been removed in the first place? and it's ok that it starts up in "tablet" mode a.k.a "Metro" on a laptop or PC because all you have to do to start getting work done is press Win+D?
To me this all sounds like utter intolerable insanity. Because people keep making excuses it makes me seriously think there's something else going on there and any positive message concerning Win8 needs to be taken with a mountain of salt.
My bet is the first change they'll tote in Windows 9 is the convenient new start menu where applications can be launched without having to use the metro interface. The next thing will be that it starts up in Desktop mode on Laptops and PCs by default and Metro on tables and phones.
While Im not an advocate of Windows 8, miss information makes me mad too. In the article it said "Some functions, such as ‘start an application’ or ‘restart the computer’ are available only from the tablet interface". I took this to mean the Metro tiles, which if that's what he meant, he is completely wrong. The command prompt is still there. The standard desktop is still there. "Old style" shortcuts still exist. Of course, he complained about that too.
WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.
The old desktop IS still there. HOWEVER, many of the things which used to be on the desktop ARE NO LONGER.
MANY THINGS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO METRO AND CAN NO LONGER BE ACCESSED OUTSIDE METRO, INCLUDING SYSTEM FUCKING PROPERTIES AND RESTART THE COMPUTER.
The review is absolutely correct, and you're completely misinformed. Just because you have a command prompt doesn't mean that everything else from your desktop still works or is still there.
I have to switch from metro to desktop to use half my apps, but I have to switch from desktop to metro to use system properties? Worst design ever.
You don't seem to understand his complaints. Its not that shorcuts work. Its that metro shortcuts kick you to the desktop, and the desktop kicks you to metro. Why can't you just use one? Why can't everything be done in both? Its a clusterfuck.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
At the end of his "review" he said he was using Windows 8 on a desktop, not a tablet.
The guy is clearly a dumbass for reviewing Microsoft's latest desktop OS offering on a desktop.
We all knew there were usability issues on the desktop.
So you feel that should make it immune from bad reviews, even though it's the OS now shipping on consumer desktop machines?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Why for god's sake is Metro UI on Server 2012? I will never install this onto a tablet, and you can't pass tablet gestures through RDP. What the hell were they thinking? Praying that 2012 R2 removes this crap.
Selex
Do you know you can type the name of the program, or area of the settings you're after? Geeks should love this, since it's much easier to operate with the keyboard than previous versions of windows. Searching by typing a few letters vs hunting through menus is easier, period.
The exact same thing is available in Windows 7.
This is simply not true.
Speaking of which...
For those who have long enough memories, there was an MS versus IBM world, with MSDOS versus IBM's DOS (Disk Operating System, not Denial Of Service). IBM held the corporate IT guys. MSDOS had no one but the masses to appeal to. The MSDOS was just as good and was nearly half the price. IBM with their hubris thought the masses would stick with IBM because they were IBM. The MSDOS got good reviews so the masses went for the much cheaper DOS.
Microsoft won because Microsoft had a much better, faster and cheaper product. Sadly, that was then. This is now.
Nonsense. MS DOS succeeded so well because MS negotiated per-CPU licenses rather than per-install. Ergo, anyone who installed PC DOS or DR DOS on their shipping units paid double for the privilege.
That was then, and this is now.
...says the guy who has literally never posted anything other than about how Windows 8, Surface, and IE10 are much better than the competition (and the older products they're replacing).
Free tip to shills (and yes, I'm calling you a shill): mix it up a little. Talk about something funny at work. Mention a local restaurant. Make a car analogy. Just don't come in and make comment after predictable comment saying the exact same thing.
And in the unlikely event that you're not a shill? Get a hobby. Seriously. There is more to life than the most recent software releases of any megacorporation. Explore your other interests a little. It's a big world!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Having used it for a few weeks for development work, I have to say I wholeheartedly disagree with you. Now, I *was* using it in a VM, but still, absolutely pathetic as an OS. It felt half baked. The constant switching between interfaces was annoying and completely broke up the user experience. It was like the OS didn't know what it wanted to be.
But thats just it, it seems essential but its not!
If it seems essential, millions of users are screaming "we need it" and third parties are writing extensions to put it back, it was essential. The start menu is a nicely organized hierarchical structure where it's easy to find applications I might not necessarily know the name of off the top of my head.
The Metro interface looks like my daughter ate a box of crayons and barfed on several place mats. There are so many issues I could literally type a fifty page document on how not to do usability when designing an interface for human computer interaction.
Not to mention from what I've read and seen demonstrated the Metro interface could possibly be used as advertising platform by constantly updating tiles to display new sales, promotions, etc... You know marketing firms will take full advantage of that. Who wants to read dozens of advertisements when you're trying to find an application to do work with?
Please don't go around tell everyone out there the start menu isn't essential to them because you don't use it. I might as well go around saying cars don't need blinkers because my father-in-law doesn't use them.